ok, i have been trying to selectively alter colors but, i can't seem to find the right effect. i'm looking for something that works like photoshop's selective color and hue saturation filter. with these two filters you can define the colors you want to adjust. in after effects it seems like every filter adjusts the whole picture. am i looking over something? i have after effects 5.5

look for something like 2ndary color correction ..
you select the color you want to change with eye dropper - it then builds a mask - you then fine tune the mask ..then change the color/hue, saturation, darken/lighten ...